Kinect is the Fastest Selling Consumer Electronics Device but Here’s Why It is Awesome

The Kinect might be the fastest selling and the most talked about consumer electronics device but it is more than just that. It is a honeypot for developers and the way developers have jumped on to the Kinect SDK bandwagon, it just assures that more awesomeness is on its way.

Kinect attracts a varied class of the tech-savvy consumer world. What developers are doing on the very first day of the Kinect SDK release will mesmerize you nonetheless.

We have seen bits and pieces of Kinect hacks and things that were tried out until now. You can see them too in this YouTube video (NSFW) . Keep in mind that all these hacks involved the Xbox 360.

However, what happened yesterday was very different. A kinect SDK for Windows PC means that now, you can use the Kinect SDK without actually owning an Xbox 360. Just the Kinect will do! Ain’t it just great? The SDK released for Windows 7 PCs is still in beta and is aimed at enthusiasts.

Well, it is great and this came in to prove that greatness. The Channel 9 Code Camp at Redmond was spilling awesomeness for the last two days and the best part is this development spree is focused beyond games. You can check some samples in development here.

Remember Pong? One of the earliest arcade games got an pretty serious service pack this morning you! The human body became the controller of the paddles as two guys from Lewis and Clark built a natural user interface version of Pong that used the skeletal tracking capability. Nick Wilson and Julian Dale showed up with no experience of coding on Windows both being Emacs developers. Within 24 hours they’d both picked up Visual Studio, learnt C# and built their version of Pong. They were so impressed they told me they were heading back to college and planned to use this with their football team and saw a ton of potential to track quarterbacks in real-time and use it for coaching purposes.

But what took everyone aback (literally) at on of the lobbies of this code camp was this.

What is left to be seen is what developers are doing with the audio capabilities. Kinect has gained popularity all for its camera hacks. The audio can also create wonders as Josh Blake has proved already.

The Kinect and its SDK for Windows will be the most awesome DIY hardware for indie developers and with this SDK, MS has unleashed a whole new world of possibilities that moves closer to Microsoft’s dream of the future.